The Alex Boyd Spy Thriller Series by Mel Harrison

The Author Mel Harrison is an American author from The Villages in Florida where he presently lives with his wife Irene to whom he has been married to for some considerable time. He spent twenty-eight years working for the US Department of State. Most of his career years were spent working in the Diplomatic Security Service, he was assigned to the embassies in Saigon, Quito, Rome, London(twice), Seoul, and Islamabad. While serving at the various embassies he worked as a Regional Security Officer (RSO) a special agent of the US Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) responsible for regional security at that those sites. In acknowledgement of his outstanding achievements in this field of high sensitivity he was awarded the departments Award of Valour and the worldwide RSO of the year award. Prior to joining the US Foreign Service, he graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Economics, followed by post graduate work at The American University. The Department of State assigned him to the NATO Defence College in Rome for Political-Military studies. Did Mel enjoy his time working at the various embassies, most definitely! In fact, when you look at his books, they are all based on his experiences at the time of his watch while working in those countries. The stories and characters have been modified somewhat for diplomatic reasons. On all his overseas assignments his wife Irene accompanied him as she followed her own diplomatic career at the embassies albeit working in a slightly different field of diplomatic expertise. Life after being a special agent for the US State Dept saw Mel working in corporate security or consulting work for ten years, this work very often entailed trips to Latin America and The Middle East, something he equally enjoyed in addition to his world of security and counter-espionage. Mel has written five books in the Alex Boyd series so far, but for the purpose of this podcast we’re mainly concentrating on his latest book ‘Spies Among Us.’ However, we will give a nod to the other books so that you can get a flavour of what they are about. Check out our video chat here! The Books Spies Among Us (Book Five -the latest novel in the series) This latest book in the Alex Boyd series set in the UK is another scintillating story line of the spy world with which Alex and his cohort of characters operate within. The depth of detail around the planning and strategy Mel Harrison the author goes into is what you would expect from a very good spymaster writer. There is so much evidence like with all the other books in the series of Mel’s own first-hand experience in this mirky world of counter-espionage. The plot has an air of reality too it, what I liked most about this book was the interactions between the US Embassy, Scotland Yard and British Intelligence Services working together to get to the bottom of an unscrupulous co-worker who’s passing highly classified information from the US government and NATO to a deep undercover Russian spy. The Russians have quite a few tricks up their sleeves which complicates matter for Alex, the CIA and FBI. With more information being leaked to the Russians the urgency to flush out all involved is a matter of huge concern. Alex needs to find out who are the spies